In his muckraking history of English pop, Black Vinyl, White Powder, Simon Napier-Bell can often be found musing on the power of Top of the Pops. "By the mid-1980s it was recognised as the most powerful piece of promotion any record could receive in Britain," he writes, while wittering on about the magic of Wham! "An appearance on the show could turn a record creeping into the bottom of the charts into a good-sized hit"

Top of the Pops has gone now, of course, and with it any showcase for new music on primetime TV. What remains, as you may well be aware, is The X Factor, which this week proved it can give the right act a sales boost TotP could only dream of.

This coming weekend, Cheryl Cole will be No 1 with her single Fight for This Love, after mid-week sales of just under 135,000. That, by the way, is a lot. An electro-pop number, Fight for this Love been well-received by the popnoscenti, but would surely not have become the fastest-selling record in years if it hadn't been for that ventilated-trouser-assisted performance last Sunday.

The People's Cheryl isn't alone in getting an X Factor fillip. Alexandra Burke got a smaller, but equally effective boost after performing in the previous week's show, and Whitney Houston, who performed after Cole, is also seeing a benefit.

The next pair of lucky performers to experience The X Factor effect will be, er, Westlife and, er, Michael Buble. Which goes to show that while TV has a continuing power to take a song places even radio can't, only the poppest (or croonest) of artists need apply.

So where's the music TV for the rest of British pop? Where's The X Factor for the xx? The truth is that outside of teen TV, there's only Jonathan Ross and Jools Holland, the former is a chat show and the latter can sometimes resemble a charity concert with added boogie woogie. Top of the Pops may never come back again, but the hole it left in our TV screens is still glaring.

New band of the day

From Monday to Friday, Paul Lester continues his heroic trawl through all that's up and all that's coming in popular music. The past week alone has featured English psych in the tradition of Syd Barrett (King Charles), a budget LCD Soundsystem (Kindness) and triumphant alt-disco from Portland (Pyramid). So why not turn on, tune in and get clued up?

Pixie Lott ... the new face of rebel music?

Singles club

Rosie Swash is the critic in charge of this week's releases and some of them may never see the light of day again. In fact, it's fair to say that of five new releases, only one doesn't get a right verbal kicking. Click on to find out which (clue: it's not Alphabeat).